3 months down, 23 more to go.... [Facebook posting from Liz]

[Elizabeth (Liz) just got on Facebook for the first time since arriving at her post last month. Since she doesn't have a public blog, I'm sharing her entry here. Highest regards to all from me, her mom, Marcia.]

Hey this is really long again...sorry!

Saturday Sept 19

Hello!

Right now I’m sitting on the front porch of my house, today is my second full day in Guidan Roumdji, my home for the next two years. It rained last night so it is nice and cool outside right now.

I haven’t been doing all that much so far; Thursday was a holiday and today is the weekend so I have only been to “work” once, and only for a few hours. Starting next week I will be going to the inspection (school administration) building every morning for a few hours, I have no idea what type of work I will be doing there, but when school starts in two weeks I expect that I will be able to go and sit in on classes, etc. There are a few public elementary schools in my town, and one high school with 2,000+ students; yesterday I met the headmaster of the high school and got a tour of the “campus” (long rows of rooms with desks in them, no electricity).

I’ve visited my neighbors a few times, the ones I met during live-in that helped me fix my stove and cooked for me. They were pretty close with the last volunteer here so I feel comfortable just walking into their house and hanging out whenever I want to, although this is something that’s apparently normal to do whether you know someone or not. I haven’t quite gotten comfortable enough to walk into a complete stranger’s house, so so far my neighbors are the only people in my village (apart from my work supervisors) that I have spent any significant amount of time with. There are four young girls there, the oldest is 17 and the youngest is 8, and lots of other random girls, a few boys, and a 2-month old baby that all come in and out of the house. Most of them know me even though I don’t remember all of them. The only kids that speak French are those who are older than about 12 years old, but that doesn’t stop the younger ones from babbling to me in Hausa as if I might understand what they’re saying if they say it loudly and slowly enough. The family has a T V with a satellite dish that gets channels from France.

I am not allowed to go into my regional capitol (Maradi) for a month, meaning I won’t see anyone from my training group until mid-October. The exception to this is the married couple that is in my sub-region that I will probably visit at some point, or they will come visit me. I am also allowed to visit (and have visit me) other PCVs that are near me – about 5 people, including another married couple (of the three couples in Niger, two are in my sub-region). My closest neighbor (a 2 hour walk away) came to visit me yesterday on his way back to his village and he gave me a small tour of my town and introduced me to some people; he knows Guidan Roumdji pretty well because he’s been coming here every week for the market, and he has been here for almost year. He doesn’t know any French and I don’t know any Hausa, so between the two of us we manage to communicate with Nigeriens in their favorite language of “Frausa” (French and Hausa combined). There are two other people that come in occasionally for the Sunday market, so I will have at least some interaction with other volunteers on a somewhat regular basis. Also, after this month I will be allowed to go to Maradi whenever I want to, although most people don’t go in more than once a month. After January I will be allowed to travel anywhere in the country.

So now I’m just kind of playing the waiting game, trying to keep myself occupied enough so that I don’t get bored and start to freak out about what the heck I am supposed to do here for two whole years; I’m trying to get used to the idea that sitting and staring at a tree for half an hour is probably a worthwhile activity if it helps me stay calm and helps pass the time. My strategy so far is to take baby steps, even if that means only leaving my house once or twice a day – the last thing I want to do is get burnt out or overwhelmed. So far I’ve been keeping busy with housework-type things, which all take about 6 times longer here (which is a good thing right now since it gives me something to do) – washing dishes, doing laundry, sweeping my house and yard, cooking, etc.

For those who are curious about what kind of food I can get here (no more birdseed jello, hooray!) I have regular access to milk (powdered, but tastes fine), butter, flour, sugar, eggs, pasta (lots of types), cous cous, rice, instant coffee, tomato paste, onions, tomatoes, potatoes, garlic, bread, peanuts, peanut butter, mayonnaise, mustard, chicken boullion, hot peppers, soy sauce, salt, curry powder, ginger, and vegetable oil. When I go into Maradi, I can stock up on Laughing Cow cheese (the kind that doesn’t need to be refrigerated), canned vegetables and fruit (unfortunately not a huge variety), ramen noodles, oatmeal, honey, tuna, chocolate, and olive oil. Also, there are some things that I’ve seen here but I’m not sure how regularly they’re available, or things that I haven’t seen yet but I’ve heard are around: cabbage, carrots, bell peppers, eggplant, peanut oil, cornmeal, tofu, apples, bananas, cucumber, and zucchini. The tofu is delicious – it comes from Nigeria so it’s not available in Niamey (or Hamdallaye) but is in Maradi and apparently sometimes in Guidan Roumdji. It’s fried and served with a spicy tomato/onion sauce, or you can buy it raw and cook it yourself. So not a huge variety of food but I think I’ll be able to manage.

I casually mentioned to my work supervisor the other day that I would like to have a cat, and he immediately offered to find one for me, so hopefully I will have that addition to my household in the somewhat near future. I also would still definitely like to have chickens, so I need to figure out how to do that and how to explain that I definitely do NOT want a rooster – contrary to popular belief, roosters do NOT only crow at the crack of dawn, and in fact tend to find 3 o’clock in the morning a great time to make lots of noise.

Mon, Sept 21

Yesterday was the last day of Ramadan, so there was lots of activity around the village. In the morning on my walk to get bread there were large crowds of people all heading in the same direction, so I followed them for a little bit and realized they were all heading toward the market area, where there was a crowd of a few thousand people. I don’t know what they were doing and didn’t want to venture too close, since I tend to attract a crowd anywhere I go if I stay still for too long (and if I’m moving the crowd just trails behind me). At one point in the morning I heard trumpet and drum noises near my front door, and I walked out to see what it was and was immediately led over to the chief’s house (two doors down from me) – the chief was sitting in his “throne” all dressed up and surrounded by other important-looking dressed-up men all sitting on the floor, and he was being serenaded by a small “band.” He called me over to sit by him, and so I awkwardly sat on the floor next to the chief in my everyday clothes, with my head uncovered, with my sandals still on (usually when you come into someone’s house you take off your shoes), and with my poor knowledge of French and Hausa and of what the heck you are supposed to do with a kola nut, which was immediately offered to me. (Apparently what you do with kola nuts is suck or chew on them and try not to make a face at their bitter taste – they are used in traditional ceremonies and are for sale on the streets, and they are full of caffeine.) I was led inside the concession after a while, where I found some of my neighbors so I hung out with them, after being distracted by the presence of a horse in the concession – horses are a rare sight here (and a rare sight inside of a home anywhere in the world), so I assume that only the richer people have them. Apparently this end-of-Ramadan “fete” continues all week, so when I went to the inspection this morning there were only a few people there and they weren’t doing very much work, apparently the “real” work starts next week.

Friday, September 25

It hasn’t rained since I started writing this so it’s been very hot lately – yesterday it got up to 124 degrees, and right now my thermometer is reading 119 degrees. Fortunately my electricity hasn’t gone out at all since I’ve been here (which is apparently abnormal) so I’m able to be in front of a fan whenever I’m at home. Also, my concession walls are high enough that they can’t be peeked over, meaning that I don’t have to conform to the conservative Muslim dress code when I’m in my house.

On Wednesday I visited the village of my closest PC neighbor, an 8 kilometer walk away from here. We got a ride on a donkey cart for the first two kilometers, which was being commanded by 3 10-year-old-ish boys – usually a free ride, but we gave them some bread just to be nice – and then we walked the rest of the way through sandy millet fields. It was nighttime for the last half-hour or so of the walk, but the 3-night-old moon (aka just a small crescent) was bright enough that we didn’t need flashlights. (The full moon here is like a spotlight and usually wakes me up in the middle of the night with me thinking that it is daytime.) My neighbor’s village (Karangia) is very small and doesn’t have electricity or running water, and there are as many millet-storage-huts as there are houses, since almost all of the villagers are farmers. I saw my first scorpion there, it was maybe about an inch long and was crawling up the side of the concession wall. I didn’t see it at first – the scorpions in this part of the country are sand-colored (and not poisonous, those ones are only in northern Niger) so they are difficult to see, but when you shine a blacklight on them they glow in the dark.

The other day I walked up to the village bread ovens that provide the daily fresh bread sold on the streets. To my surprise and somewhat horror, they are made of the exact clay/mud material that houses are made of, only that they are smaller – maybe about 5 feet square. So basically my house is a giant oven. It’s possible that a fire is lit in the real ovens to use them for bread-making, I’m not sure exactly how they work, but the thought still isn’t comforting.

I’m luckier than some other volunteers in that I have a very small number of bugs/other creatures than inhabit my house/concession – I’m convinced that I have an abnormally high lizard population, which is fine with me, especially since some of the lizards are less than two inches long and are therefore adorable, although the bigger ones tend to make a lot of noise when they run across my (corrugated tin) roof playing chase-the-other-lizards, which is their favorite game.

Monday, Sept 28

Yesterday I went to my first Guidan Roumdji market. There’s actually not too much stuff there that isn’t sold every day in the street shops, and unfortunately a disappointing amount of vegetables, but that might be because of the season – harvest hasn’t started so people’s pockets are tight, so it’s not worth bringing in lots of vegetables if no one can afford to buy them. Just now, in fact, I was up at the main road looking for onions, which I’ve been told should be available year-round, but there were none to be found – this even though just last week there were several stands selling onions, tomatoes, eggplant, cucumber, cabbage, and potatoes. Fortunately I found a “friend,” (warning, this is a side-story) a man that I had met briefly while walking around town with my work supervisor, who asked me what I was looking for and quickly dashed off on his motorcycle to bring me back a small bag of onions from some secret location. He didn’t take the money I offered to him, saying it was a “cadeau” – this is the third time that has happened to me TODAY. The first time I was buying fried cornmeal cakes (a new food for me; they don’t have them in Hamdallaye) and I only had enough change for one, even though I wanted two, and the vendor didn’t have change for my 1,000 CFA bill (about $2). So she gave me the second one for free. Then as I was coming back from work, I wanted water, but again only had the 1,000 bill, so that too was free, even though I had never even met those people. I don’t know if I receive these “gifts” because I’m white, because charity is a tenant of Islam, or because they’re hoping that I’ll come back to buy something later – maybe a combination of all three things, but personally I’m really leaning toward Islam, which is taken very seriously here, plus just a general kindheartedness of Nigeriens. Who knows, but it’s appreciated, especially when I know that pockets are extra tight right now.

Anyway, back to the market – I had a funny encounter while looking for cement, which I need to repair a crack in my clay water jug/urn/thing (which keeps water cooler than a plastic jug). I found a stall with what looked like small piles and columns of cement, but unfortunately I only knew enough Hausa to ask if it was indeed cement (which is wasn’t), and not enough to understand what it WAS. A very small, very old woman with a very large bundle of stuff piled on her head noticed my confusion and came over to try to explain to me what the substance was, though as she had most of her teeth missing and only knew Hausa herself, her (10 minute long) explanation didn’t help me much, even with the help of an enthusiastic pantomime of something repeatedly being licked. A teenage boy who had been watching us finally helped me out, explaining simply “c’est sel, pour les animaux” – salt for animals. Of course. So after I got done feeling silly for thinking that salt was cement, I felt a little cooler (and dorkier) walking around the market knowing that I was surrounded by the product of trans-Saharan (or maybe not trans, I don’t actually know where the salt came from) salt trade, one of the few things I remember learning about in 8th grade Global History class.

I did my first official “work” today at the inspection, as opposed to this past week when I just kinda went and sat around and talked to people, studied Hausa, or learned how to play a computer game (matching Pokemon characters – the HR manager is addicted to this game and loves when I play with him) but today I helped record exam grades. By “record,” I mean I wrote over the pencil grade marks in pen in the exam record book, presumably to make it harder to alter the score. So maybe not a world-changing activity, but it was nice to feel slightly useful for once.

I just remembered my fourth “cadeau” of today. Yesterday at the market, I ran into a man who works at the inspection – he was sitting in a stall selling and repairing shoes (I don’t know if he was working or visiting a friend). I chatted with him for a little while, and asked if it would be possible to fix one of my shoes whose strap had broken. He told me to bring it to work the next day (today) and we’d take care of it, so I did and asked how much it would cost – nothing, cadeau. Also, as a note on the previously mentioned charity as a pillar of Islam, I’ve found that the religious aspect of charity here helps me to exclude myself (and lessen my guilt, since I have a somewhat reasonable excuse) from giving money to beggars, who of course flock to me and my white skin almost as quickly as children do. I think I would occasionally give money to beggars, who I assume usually really don’t have another option for income, but to do it in my village I think would be a mistake since I feel like I would be expected to give regularly if I gave once. Plus I don’t want white skin to be associated solely with money, as it generally is here. So but basically I feel like if someone gave me a hard time for not giving charity (which so far hasn’t happened) then whelp, too bad, I’m not Muslim so I don’t have to.

Fri, Oct 9

So after being slightly useless for the past three weeks (not that I’m complaining – I’ve been greatly enjoying being lazy) I decided a few days ago that maybe I should actually start doing something productive and work-related. Of course the problem of this is figuring out where to start: my official job title here is “Community and Youth Educator,” and while there are a lot of specific goals of the CYE program, they are plentiful and varied, and each volunteer has the freedom to tackle these goals or other ones that they identify in their own way. So while it’s nice to have the option to focus on whatever areas/issues that interest me, deciding exactly what those areas/issues are has so far been a challenge. For example, do I want to help middle- and high-school students improve their English, or strengthen their knowledge of other subjects taught in school? This would help them pass their end-of-year exams and therefore decrease their likelihood of dropping out of school, but what about the kids that aren’t even in school? Should I be trying to teach them life skills that they are missing out on – income-generation strategies, literacy, health, etc. – helping these out-of-school youth is also part of the CYE program. And what about trying to increase girls’ enrollment and retention in school? This is a huge problem in Niger and there are a lot of things PC volunteers can and have done about it, but how do I decide that this issue is more important than the others? And will anything I do actually be effective?

So basically after being overwhelmed by this for a while and not knowing what to do about it, I finally remembered that we were given INSTRUCTIONS on what to do – Peace Corps put together a whole manual on the CYE job, with specific tips on what to do during our first few weeks at post, and specific outlines of projects that past CYE volunteers have done. So in reading through this manual (which I probably should have done during training) I found a whole list of NGOs near my town that are education- and youth-focused, and right before this list there was a bolded suggestion that I should probably be introducing myself to these NGOs so that we can collaborate on projects and activities (if we want to). There was only one NGO on the list that was actually in my town – an organization that provides vocational training to out-of-school youth, and upon seeing it on the list I asked the secretary at the inspection (I was reading this at the inspection) if he had heard of it, expecting that he probably hadn’t. So of course I was surprised when he pointed out the window of his office to a small building right behind the inspection, with a man sitting in front of it as though he were expecting that right at that moment I would be asking about his organization. We walked over and I introduced myself and the man (the director of the organization) gave me a brief overview of what kinds of things were done there, explaining that sewing classes would probably start next week, and that he would be glad to have me come and observe/help out with them. Well, that was easy.

The day before this I had asked my supervisor if he would take me to the middle/high school (all on one campus) so that I could meet the English teachers and maybe arrange to sit in on a class or two. They weren’t there at the time – school “started” this Monday but like anything else it takes a while to get off the ground, so today when I went back there were still no classes but there were a few English teachers. I chatted with them for a while, explaining why I’m here (roughly) and that I’d like to see one of their classes sometime. They immediately laid out their schedule for Monday morning, saying that I could come for any or all of their classes, and one would like me to come in Wednesday for a guest speaker session with his class. One teacher remembered a volunteer from a few years ago who had done a weekly English club that he had helped out with, and was very excited that I was interested in possibly doing something like that as well. I had to explain to him that I wasn’t quite ready to start something like that right at this moment, and that I might even be able to do an English club at all, but that I would definitely keep it in mind. Ideally, I’d like to sit in on as many classes as possible (and not just English, although obviously that probably where I’ll be the most useful), just to get to know what school is like here and to do something more productive than tree-staring.

I had also heard that there was an “MJC” in Guidan Roumdji, which is some sort of youth center, I actually don’t really know what it is but I’ve heard of other volunteers that work in MJCs so I asked my neighbor about it, and this afternoon she is going to go with me to introduce me to people there and presumably get an explanation of what an MJC is.

Wed, October 14

I’ve been going to school for the past three days, met a bunch of the English teachers and sat in on about maybe 6 of their classes, ranging from 6th grade to 12th grade levels. There is quite a diversity in teaching style – some of the teachers (two in particular) seem just generally unhappy to be in class and display this emotion by berating the students for silly things and exuding infectious boredom which renders the students unenthusiastic about participate in class. These are among the teachers who arrive the latest to school, well after the official starting time of 7:30, although it seems that almost no teachers arrive on time, despite the fact that most students are at school several minutes early. (The beginning of class periods, by the way, is denoted by the banging of a large metal wrench on an empty propane tank, which is hanging from a tree near the school’s entrance.) Other teachers are somewhat more animated, although as class is mostly based on simple fill-in-the-blank exercises written on the board, it’s hard to get all that passionate about the material. One woman in particular, though, has figured out some secret to getting kids excited about English – every time she asks a question, almost all of the kids jump out of their seats yelling “Madame!” and snap their fingers (apparently not rude here) in an effort to get called on. Maybe it’s because she’s the only teacher (that I’ve seen) that regularly uses positive enforcement – simply saying “good!” after a student gets the answer correct, which the other teachers rarely or never do. She even sometimes has the whole class clap when a student gets a difficult answer right, and she is always smiling. (Obviously, she is my favorite so far.)

Class sizes vary greatly in this school, which is a combined middle and high school – the only middle- or high-school in the area, so students from “the bush” have to live in my town during the week and only go back home on the weekends. Almost half of the ~2,000 students are in 6th grade, and class sizes (and the percentage of girls in each class) decrease steadily as 12th grade is approached. The two 12th grade classes that I saw had about 8 students in them, meaning that there are probably less than 20 12th graders in the whole school. This is compared with the 6th grade class that had 91 students on the roster (18 girls), which was one of the 9 or so 6th grade sections. All the students in this class were seated on long benches bush-taxi style, meaning practically sitting on top of each other and with little elbow room for taking notes during class. Again, I’m a little overwhelmed as far as what I’m supposed to do about this – clearly the school needs more classrooms and more desks, but even if I were to somehow get the money to provide that, I don’t know if there would be enough teachers to allow for smaller class sizes. There are so many factors that go into any project idea that I have, and I have no idea how to even start going about getting money. Fortunately I have additional PC training in January that is more focused on fundraising efforts, but it’s a little frustrating to be stuck here for three more months with no idea what to tell people when they ask if I can help them with things like building schools, buying vocational-skill-training materials, bringing electricity to community centers, etc. (I did end up going to the MJC, it is a community center and library and they want electricity and books in English, both things I don’t know how to get.)

I am thinking of starting an English club sometime soon since that doesn’t require any money, but again I’m not really sure where to start – what grade level should I work with, and how do I select who gets to be in the club and who doesn’t? Fortunately I’m finally allowed to go into Maradi (my regional capitol) since I have now completed one full month at post, so I’ll be able to ask other volunteers about all these things. I’ll also finally be able to eat some VEGETABLES – there’s been nothing but onions and hot peppers in my town for at least two weeks, and one day I couldn’t even get onions. Fruit has also been mostly out of the question, although sometimes I can find bananas. I think after harvest is over (a few more weeks) then people will have more money and there will be more produce, but this year it has only rained about 1/3 as much as it usually does, so there might not be as much available as usual. I’m hoping that pretty soon I’ll figure out how to garden, so I’ll be able to grow at least some of my own food, but for now I’m just loading up on vitamin pills and good food whenever I go into Maradi.

My thermometer read 130 degrees yesterday, when I get online I’m going to check if it really was that hot because that’s crazy. Somehow I wasn’t dying from the heat – I think the fact that it’s not very humid here means that being in the shade is significantly cooler than being in the sun (moreso than in the US) and also I have a fan and tend not to move very much in the afternoon when it’s really hot.

Yesterday evening I didn’t go over to my neighbor’s house like I usually do (I went on a walk instead – it’s the only time of day when it’s cool enough) and so today when I went over the girls were especially excited to see me. The youngest one, Zuzu (8 years old), ran up to me and actually hugged me – the first time I’ve seen/experienced hugging here as physical affection is usually off-limits (except between men, who often hold hands, it’s kinda funny). So while screaming excitedly “JAMILA! YOU’RE HERE!” I noticed that this little girl was decked out in a complet (matching shirt and skirt) and pink pearls, and had shiny blue makeup on her eyelids and lips. Apparently she was that excited about going to school today. So then we all settled down to a game of Go Fish, whose rules are still somewhat fuzzy to the girls (they got mangled somewhere in the translation from English to French to Hausa) but they all know that when you tell someone to draw a card, you have to scream “Go Fish!”

I realize that this story requires me explaining that Jamila is my “Nigerien” name, given to me by my host family in Hamdallaye – each PCV gets a name that they usually keep throughout their service, just to minimize the difficulty and separateness that comes with going by a weird (and usually hard-to-pronounce) American name. My neighbors (and other people who ask) know that my real name is Elizabeth, but most people just accept that my name is Jamila as though it’s not weird at all for a white girl to have an African (or Arabic, actually) name. It means “beautiful.”